Chive Biscuits with Ham and Cheddar

When my 4-year-old son comes bounding into the kitchen while I'm making biscuits, asking, "Can I help?" I cannot say no. He used to bake with my all the time, testing everything, making faces when the melted chocolate was unsweetened or wrinkling his nose at the baking powder. Every once in a while, however, I just wanted cookies or a pound cake, whatever, and I didn't want to spend 45 minutes cleaning butter out of his hair and flour off every surface in the kitchen. So I was annoyed. And cranky. It only took a couple of encounters with Cranky Mommy to convince my son to steer clear of the kitchen when I was baking. Now I miss him, but no amount of coaxing works to bring him back.

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Which is how I ended up saying yes last night; we made these slightly ugly but still tasty biscuits to accompany some tomato soup I had simmering. We sliced the biscuits horizontally in half as best we could and made sandwiches out of them with ham and Cheddar cheese.

To make the biscuits, we mixed ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons flour, 1½ teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt and then cut in 3 tablespoons cold butter that I had already cut in small pieces. When it was broken down to the size of mini peas in the flour, we mixed in a couple tablespoons chopped chives and 6 tablespoons milk with a few quick strokes. Kneaded it just a couple of times and patted it into a square on a floured surface, then cut the square into 4 square biscuits. Baked in a 450-degree oven for 15 minutes.